October 2009

October 29, 2009

By default when calculating material takeoff area totals in Revit, you may notice the faces for all sides of the object are scheduled for the total area.

Using a door panel for this example, take a 3’-0” x 7’-0” panel extrusion. The overall size of the door panel has an area of 21 SF.

If you schedule the door panel however, it will show a default “Material: Area” of 45 SF [or 45.3 SF without any rounding].

What is happening is that each face of the door panel extrusion [front, back, left, right, top & bottom] is being included in the surface area since the material appears on each face.

This takes 21 SF x 2 for the front & back + 1.16 SF X 2 for the left & right + .5 SF X 2 for the top & bottom for a total of 45.3 SF rounded down to 45 SF by default.

To achieve a more specific number for scheduling, we can create a new parameter for “Material: Thickness” and use it in a calculated value column with the approach below:

1. Since “Volume” is calculated, first create a project parameter for materials called "Thickness". Set type to “Length”.

2. Next add a “Calculated Value” column in the schedule to divide the “Material: Volume” parameter by the “Material: Thickness” parameter [which would be entered manually for each material in the project] once you add that parameter to the schedule. Calculated value column should be set to “Area”.

3. The “Calculated Value” column will display a more specific number for scheduling.

October 16, 2009

I’ve had a few scenarios over the last few weeks isolating what may be causing Revit 2010 to launch slower than expected. I wanted to pass along the best approach to troubleshoot this, as well as 3 common areas to verify on the workstation.

To best isolate what may be going on, open the latest journal file. For each action in the journal file, a time\date stamp is recorded. These time stamps will best explain where the delay may be occurring. For example:

Look for long time changes between actions. If you come across one, you can isolate exactly where the delay is occurring.

The 3 most common causes of startup delays typically are as follows:

1. License Connection

Check the line directly before and after the “License Mode” and “Expiration” in the journal file. The 2 time stamps should be close together.

If there is a substantial delay, try steps # 1-4 and # 6 from the technical solution below:

The recommendation is to have the read-only render appearance library location on the local workstation drive. You can avoid startup delays by keeping the path to the default location in Options > Rendering > Render Appearance Library Location > “C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010\Data\Rendering\assetlibrary_base.fbx”. You can see this information in the first journal image referencing “Protein”.

3. Recent Files List

Revit can potentially experience a startup delay when files are referenced in the Revit.ini Recent File list that may have moved. For example a server may have changed locations or have been renamed. To simply test this you can open the Revit.ini file on the workstation located in "C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010\Program", make a backup of the file, and then locate the following line:

[Recent File List]

To test, remove all of the entries beneath the “[Recent File List]” to “[Recent Workset List]” leaving a blank line so it appears as follows:

October 13, 2009

Update: Looks like the problem is fixed (I think). Now you can download a ZIP file and extract it to get the CHM file with the tool - Thanks, Harlan

In order to help users transition from the 2009 user interface to the 2010 user interface, I am pleased to annouce a new UI Mapping tool to help make the transition a little easier. There are some other tools like this that have been created already by others, this tool was created by Autodesk.

October 07, 2009

This issue came up the other day and I thought it would be useful to pass along. A sometimes forgotten filter rule we can sort all objects by is workset. There may be scenarios where graphically seeing which objects are assigned to which worksets may be useful.

We can achieve this by creating view filters, and enabling them in a view as needed. Colors can be assigned to each filter to easily differenciate which objects are assigned to which workset.

October 06, 2009

Here are some tips for things you can check if your grid lines are missing (click on images to enlarge):

Is the Grid category turned on?Check Visibility/Graphics in the view and make sure that the Grids Annotation Category is turned on.

Are the grids hidden in the view?To see if this is the problem, toggle on the Reveal Hidden Elements tool. If you see the missing grid, select it, right click and choose Unhide in View.

Is your grids workset opened in the project?To check, click the Worksets icon in the Collaborate tab. Verify that your grids workset display Yes in the Opened column.

Is your grids workset turned on in the view?Check the Worksets tab in Visibility/Graphics to see if your Grids workset is turned on in the view.

Do the extents of the grid cross the view in question?Datum planes such as grids aren't visible in views if they don't intersect the view's plane. Try going to a view where you can see the grid, right click it, and choose Maximize 3D Extents and see if it shows up in the view in question. A good general rule would be to set up the primary levels before laying out the grid. This will force the display of grids to show on all levels.

Are the grids perpendicular to the view?Grids must be perpendicular to views to display. So if your elevation and grid line don't intersect at a perpendicular angle, the grid it won't show up in the elevation.

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Is your grid line curved?Arc grid lines will display in section views where the center of the arc intersects and is perpendicular to the section line.

Another good resource for more information on this topic is in the Datum Extents and Visibility document in the Help menu within the product.

I wanted to bring up a topic that I've seen generate some confusion with users. I have handled many Support Requests logged because users made modifications to the line weight, style, or color of bracing in Plan views but do not see the changes update.

In Coarse display, braces are represented by symbols that are determined in the Structural Settings dialog (click images to enlarge):

Many users go to Visibility/Graphics Model Categories > Structural Framing to modify the brace settings, as shown in the following screenshot. You'll see that even though the braces are set to show Red, they're still black.

This is because in Coarse representation you are controlling the display of the brace symbols, and not the actual brace geometry. Rather than being controlled in the Model Categories, the display is controlled in Visibility/Graphics > Annotation Categories > Brace in Plan View Symbols, as shown below: